The Feminist Problem with Patriarchy

I was reading a post (which I have since lost, unfortunately, or I would link it. If anyone can find it, please feel free to mention it in the comments) where the author, having read someone else, (see why it would be nice if I had the article?) mentioned that while men face sexual rejection, women face rape. Or a higher incidence of sexual rejection and a higher incidence of rape.

But enough about this article, which I lost. What I would like to explore in this article is the feminist relationship to chivalry. 

Chivalry and its Cousins

When I use the word ‘chivalry’ in this post, I’m not talking merely about the ‘die for you’ kinds of chivalry, and still less am I talking about the scented handkerchiefs and effeminate courtiers: I’m talking about the sexual dimorphism and resulting cultural issues found in this Shakespeare quote:

Fie, fie, unknit that threat'ning unkind brow

And dart not scornful glances from those eyes

To wound thy lord, thy king, thy governor.

It blots thy beauty as frosts do bite the meads,

Confounds thy fame as whirlwinds shake fair buds,

And in no sense is meet or amiable.

A woman moved is like a fountain troubled,

Muddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty,

And while it is so, none so dry or thirsty

Will deign to sip or touch one drop of it.

Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,

Thy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee

And for thy maintenance; commits his body

To painful labor both by sea and land,

To watch the night in storms, the day in cold,

Whilst thou li'st warm at home, secure and safe;

And craves no other tribute at thy hands

But love, fair looks, and true obedience--

Too little payment for so great a debt.

Such duty as the subject owes the prince,

Even such a woman oweth to her husband;

And when she is froward, peevish, sullen, sour,

And not obedient to his honest will,

What is she but a foul contending rebel

And graceless traitor to her loving lord?

I am ashamed that women are so simple

To offer war where they should kneel for peace,

Or seek for rule, supremacy, and sway,

Whey they are bound to serve, love, and obey.

Why are our bodies soft and weak and smooth,

Unapt to toil and trouble in the world,

But that our soft conditions and our hearts

Should well agree with our external parts?

Come, come, you froward and unable worms,

My mind hath been as big as one of yours,

My heart as great, my reason haply more,

To bandy word for word and frown for frown.

But now I see our lances are but straws,

Our strength as weak, our weakness past compare,

That seeming to be most which we indeed least are.

Then vail your stomachs, for it is no boot,

And place your hands below your husband's foot,

In token of which duty, if he please,

My hand is ready, may it do him ease.

And this would be for two different reasons. Perhaps even three:

1) In a situation of physical conflict, the male will be seen as more of a threat. Yes, he might be intimated and cower and submit, but he also might fight, and, fighting, will probably do a better job than the female.

2) In a situation where a female is threatened, the average male will try to protect the female. Even if she is unrelated to him, but especially if he is related.

And it came to pass, when he was come near to enter into Egypt, that he said unto Sarai his wife, Behold now, I know that thou art a fair woman to look upon:

Therefore it shall come to pass, when the Egyptians shall see thee, that they shall say, This is his wife: and they will kill me, but they will save thee alive.

Say, I pray thee, thou art my sister: that it may be well with me for thy sake; and my soul shall live because of thee.

Genesis 12:11-13

3) There is a rather bizarre fact that men have a natural aversion to sleeping with women who belong to other men. It isn’t absolute, but it does exist. Thus they will tend to kill the other man before taking his woman. 

Now, let's look some more at the broader aspects of chivalry.  Let’s look at some of the ways in which the differences between men and women work out in society:

1. More men die at work. Leaving aside soldiers (point 2)

2. More men die in wars. While both men and women (and children) die in war, many more men die.

3. Ditto injuries in both work and war.

4. Women get pregnant and nurse children. This leaves them weaker and vulnerable for long periods of time.

5. Women are shorter, weaker, have less lung capacity, etc etc, in general than men. This leads to a whole variety of behaviours (helping get things from high shelves, unloading heavy packages, etc) that tend to go one way, sexually speaking.

They Hate It

Feminists hate chivalry. They write screeds against it. They grind their teeth.

They don’t take it into account.

Now, here is the crux of my article. When feminists and their fellow travellers talk about differences between men and women, they forget about chivalry and all of its cousins. They may hate it, but whenever they start listing differences between men and women as far as how society treats them, they ignore it.

There are a wide variety of differences between men and women. They are many, broad, and deep. And they work out in a variety of ways in a variety of societies. The feminist problem is that they wish to ignore some of the ways that these differences work out and emphasise others. They wish to complain about the lack of female CEO’s, while ignoring the lack of female lumber jacks. They wish the camera to focus on the woman being raped, and ignore the man that died trying to prevent her from being raped.

I remember listening to a podcast, I think it was on Triggernometry but it might have been on TimCast, where a woman, the same woman, first argued that women were more vulnerable to being raped, how she feared walking to her car at night, how men didn’t have that same fear, how something needed to be done about it… and then waxed eloquent on how we needed to treat men and women equally and not suggest that it would be a good idea for a man to walk her to her car. At night.  In the dark. When she was afraid of being raped.

Historically (like, before 15 minutes ago), everyone understood that the sexes were different and how the various laws and customs were there to reflect those differences. They understood how the Billy Graham rule was there to protect both the man and the woman but to protect them very differently. Even where they disagreed with some of these laws and customs, they at least understood why they were there.

Conclusion

Nowadays, our society is stuck between the rock of trying to pretend that there are no sex-based differences and the hard place of their reality and results. And we’re getting crushed. The white queen may have tried to believe ten contradictory things before breakfast every morning, but you can’t run a society successfully while trying to push two contradictory things.

The reality is that men and women are not only different, they are very different. They are not only different in ‘plumbing’, but in multiple aspects of biology. And they are not only different in biology but in psychology. And all of these differences work themselves into differences in culture and society.

Links

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/culture-conscious/202104/why-do-men-have-the-most-dangerous-jobs

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2022-11-28/ty-article/.premium/a-third-of-israeli-female-soldiers-were-sexually-harassed-in-2021-report-says/00000184-bee1-d136-affd-fff5ac590000

https://mwi.westpoint.edu/with-equal-opportunity-comes-equal-responsibility-lowering-fitness-standards-to-accommodate-women-will-hurt-the-army-and-women/

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